


It's (Not) Rotten Work

by narrowredoubt (orphan_account)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Coming Out, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, M/M, Marauders Era (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:01:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22606669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/narrowredoubt
Summary: “I don’t know why you think you can convince me you’re a nice sweet boy or something, Padfoot, you’ll recall we in fact dorm together, and I actuallyknow you.”“Wh—I—I’m nice!” Sirius sputtered.Remus snorted ungraciously in response, “Come off it, our whole friendship is based on, on inventing hexes to send foul things up people’s noses, and stringing each other up by the ankles as a morning wake-up, and repeatedly risking Azkaban together. None of us arenice.”“Well, I could be nice,” Sirius muttered, shrugging as if the gesture could make his words seem more casual than desperate, “if you wanted.”
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 10
Kudos: 257





	It's (Not) Rotten Work

Today was the day, Remus had decided, that he would stop humoring Sirius’s strange new attitude of solicitousness. It was highly suspicious behavior, mostly because he hadn’t yet figured out what it was that Sirius was clearly trying to make up for.

He had mentioned it to James that morning, still on the fence about whether he really _wanted_ to know, and while the look of panic that flashed across Prongs’s face had not inspired any confidence in the situation, it did decide him on the matter of bringing it up. He brushed up on the anti-Animagus hex as well—in what was normally a classic Sirius-move for escaping awkward conversations, James had transformed and bounded away down the stairs of the tower at a gallop when it seemed Remus would ask him for details on what he thought Padfoot was playing at.

But despite his reluctance to talk to Remus about it, Prongs must have given Sirius the heads up because as they were let out of class to a mutual gap in their schedules, Sirius brought it up first.

“Moony, you know how I’ve sworn I’ll always be there for the—when you go away?”

Remus gave him a sidelong glance, projecting suspicion as hard as he could, while Sirius did his best not to mind it.

“Yes.”

“And you know how I always steal the notes from lessons you’ve missed from that Ravenclaw, and I did all those mad things with Hagrid to help the wolf before we finally found a better fix for your furry little problem? And…” He stretches the syllable out, clearly scrambling for more good deeds.

“Mm-hmm…?”

“And how I’ve brought you snacks and things when you’re in the hospital wing?”

Remus scoffed, “You send Peter to get those!”

“Yes, well—I’ve always helped you though, haven’t I?”

“I don’t know why you think you can convince me you’re a nice sweet boy or something, Padfoot, you’ll recall we in fact dorm together, and I actually _know you_.”

“Wh—I—I’m nice!” Sirius sputtered.

Remus snorted ungraciously in response, “Come off it, our whole friendship is based on, on inventing hexes to send foul things up people’s noses, and stringing each other up by the ankles as a morning wake-up, and repeatedly risking Azkaban together. None of us are _nice_.”

“Well, I could be nice,” Sirius muttered, shrugging as if the gesture could make his words seem more casual than desperate, “if you wanted.”

Remus shook his head, amused. “Merlin help me, because I don’t reckon I do and you ought to have guessed as much by now. So, come on then, what’ve you done, Pads? Out with it.”

“I haven’t done anything! I— it’s about what I’m going to do. Maybe.”

Sirius took a deep breath, wanting to get it over with but barely able to keep himself from stalling from nerves.

“Next Hogsmeade weekend, I was thinking—I’d like you to go with me, er, just the two of us—” He paused, and then took another breath, too long in the middle of what sounded like it was meant to be followed by more, and didn’t continue.

“Alright..?” said Remus slowly, dragging out the word to make it into a question. Sirius, who was avoiding eye contact, didn’t look like he was any closer to providing coherent details. “Where to, then? No, better question: what for? You idiot, has this been your idea of fishing for a favor? Half a week regaling me with a list of every nice thing you’ve ever done—half of which was really other people doing it, mind you, don’t think I didn’t notice.”

“No-o, it’s not that. I don’t want anything _from_ you, er, rather, that is to say, I want to go _with_ you…”

Until then, their conversation had been at a normal volume, walking through corridors still full of students between classes, but they turned into one that was empty. Despite the wide open space, they walked so close their shoulders brushed together with every step. Sirius lowered his voice enough that Remus tilted his head closer, just a bit, to hear him better.

“I’m asking you to Hogsmeade because—this is my way of telling you. And I wanted to do it properly—I, Moony, I fancy you.”

“You what?” hissed Remus, taking a half-step away and breaking their closeness—but not far enough that they couldn’t keep talking below a whisper. Sirius, who had graduated to now darting glances at his face, nervously wet his lips and parted his mouth like he might actually try to answer him. Remus cut him off before he could begin: “No, never mind that, I heard you. I don’t half believe you, but I heard you. How did you—” _How did you_ know.

Remus snapped his mouth shut on the incriminating sentence, and tried to find calm under the rising thunder of his heartbeat. How could Sirius know about stolen looks, about thoughts and inappropriate dreams, about secret locked away longings? Well, he couldn’t. This was something else, Remus knew—he was too tightly wound, too self-conscious in his every action—he knew there was no chance he’d given himself away. So this must have come from within Sirius. Sirius, who fancied him. Remus felt his stomach clench, his teeth, his fists, his shoulders, every line of his body held tight like the string of a bow. Beside him, Sirius was all fidgets and nervous movements: tugging a lock of his hair, chewing his lip, one free hand worrying a loose button on his school bag.

“Is this a prank? Tell me you’re not s—” Remus stopped before he could fully utter the pun. This had really thrown him off if he couldn’t even manage to control his choice of words, he thought, and his incredulity rapidly shifted into frustration.

“Tell you that I’m Sirius, you say?” The well-worn joke came out on autopilot.

“Tell me that you don’t mean it!” replied Remus in a whisper ended as a shout.

“Tell me why you won’t believe it,” countered Sirius, struggling with equally potent impulses to be so honest and sappy Remus would be somehow forced to understand him, versus cutting his losses while he still could and paying back the rejection with a parting shot aimed to hit where it hurt. “Is it because you’re not gay? Or do you just think no one could ever like you because you’re so hung up on your furry little problem?”

“Shut the fuck up! No! That’s gone too far, Padfoot.”

Sirius winced in acknowledgement, and held up his hands in a quick gesture of surrender.

“That was too far,” he agreed, “But it’s not a prank, Moony. Is that the only reason that you won’t believe me? It’s really not a joke.” His gaze moved about as much as his restless hands as he spoke, but then he caught Remus’s searching stare and was stuck there. He grinned nervously, with only a bit of his customary cheek making a reappearance as he continued, “I’d—I think I’d like to try and convince you… if you’d let me.”

At that, Remus blushed so heatedly he could feel the beginning prickles of sweat at his hairline. It took him a minute to work up the requisite amount of denial from among all the other riotous emotions clamoring for space in his body. He scoffed, weakly, “Come off it. I just—I’m not like some girl you’ve picked up before, wasting my hours sighing and waiting around for Sirius Black to notice I exist, of course I don’t just believe it.”

“I don’t know why you think I could mistake you for a girl, Moony. Like, learn to take a hint, it’s in the nature of—of liking blokes, you know? I want you _because_ —I mean to say, I like that you’re—you’re really very, um…”

“I’m very _what_ , Pads?” snapped Remus impatiently, eager to cut off any joke at his own expense.

“—manly,”

Sirius’s face flamed, mortified from just listening to himself. He had spoken as though the thousand mental cue cards for flirting he’d amassed over years of indefatigable cheek had scattered across the plane of his mind like a deck of Exploding Snap, leaving him without an ounce of his typical social ease.

Remus, who had been poised to shove past him at the slightest hint of an insincere compliment on his plain looks, prepared to sneer and roll his eyes at any absurdity resembling the word “handsome,” was brought up short. Was he… manly? Remus had been prepared to retort that he was no such thing to just about any endearment Sirius might come up with, but he had to let the rejection subside in order to process the idea. He didn’t exactly want to _not_ be manly. It was a uniquely bewildering sort of compliment, something about himself he’d never consciously thought to examine. He definitely ranked above Peter, Remus decided. Possibly below James, if being mad about quidditch was a quality being taken into account. At any rate, he found couldn’t readily dispute a measure of his attractiveness based on masculinity, and as masculine charms weren’t something that could be ruined by the wolf, it felt like it might be a more reliable measure than any idealistic description of his looks. Even if it was an odd thing to say.

As for Sirius, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so embarrassed or stuttered out something so stupid. Perhaps as a child, giving a blatantly transparent excuse for being caught out after hours by McGonagall for the very first time. Obviously he liked men, but just saying it like that sounded—ugh. There was no excuse for losing his head to the extent that he forgot how to give a compliment. Everything was just coming out wrong. He wasn’t a stranger to making a scene, and had regularly made many an outrageous and inventive declaration in front of the entire Hogwarts student body to draw attention for good or ill, but he’d never felt embarrassment this potent at just the words coming out of his mouth. This was the mortifying power of a hopeless crush. Sirius had thought it would be so simple, easier than usual even, to ask someone out when he really meant it, really, madly, passionately felt some way about it. But it felt like a disaster, and not the fun kind.

After the silence of Remus’s end had become unbearable, Sirius finally spoke again:

“Well… there you go. I’ll not bring it up again. This—I’ve told you how I felt, and now I’m telling you I meant it so you can’t mistake me. I daresay I’ve learned enough from the example of Prongs’ thousand failed attempts at wooing, so that’s it, this is the last hurrah, and you don’t have to worry any of this will ever be mentioned again.” Sirius was starting to gather up his wounded pride, ready to make a hasty exit, but not yet far enough into the process to have reached the sulking or angry phases of having been rejected.

Remus, however, was starting to entertain the idea of his friend’s interest and thought to prolong the encounter, not having yet admitted to himself that he was won over.

“A last hurrah, Pads? You’d hardly got started, you know, it all seems a bit… sedate, for a hurrah. Especially if you’re mentioning James-and-Lily in the same breath,” said Remus. He didn’t anticipate anything remotely like James’s shameless displays of affection, considering how Sirius had gone about it all thus far—quietly, in an empty corridor—but it always paid to be on guard against potential scenes of embarrassment among the Marauders. Sirius most of all of them was given to bouts of extravagant theatricality and so it was a practical line of questioning to probe the difference between his considerately understated confession and what one might expect from him under the influence of a new, all-consuming romantic pursuit. Besides, it might reveal how much Sirius had thought this through, for how long, and how realistically—knowledge that was suddenly and inexplicably hugely important to Remus.

“Well, that’s also the nature of liking blokes, isn’t it? I couldn’t very well go for announcing it with singing cherubs and a line of trumpets in the great hall and—and little dog-and-wolf shaped confetti raining down.”

“How very… specific,” said Remus faintly, imagining it.

“Never mind that, Moony, the point is, yeah, obviously I’ve been the very soul of subtlety. Whether or not you—" He paused and cleared his throat to prevent any ideas his voice might get about breaking—“fancied me back, you wouldn’t want any extra attention your way. Downright thoughtful of me, really.” Clearly a part of his mind was still on the task of generating proof of how nice he was and how eminently dateable it made him, but Remus could allow for how that was in fact considerate.

He replied, “but then, it’s not just me, like you said. Any bloke would hate it being shouted from the towers that he’s bent. Whether or not it’s… true,” Remus said, with the last bit lost in a mumble. _Merlin, was he considering this?,_ he asked himself. _Could he fancy Sirius?_

“And that’s why I figured, I mean. If you wondered why I wondered if maybe you… I didn’t suppose you really might fancy blokes at all, but I thought if you did you’d keep that secret buttoned up so tight I’d never know anyway. There’s no bringing it up naturally, it was always going to be like, you know, as subtle as a bludger to the face. I guess the only consolation is that trying to pull with all the tact of an erumpent is about par for any bog-standard Gryffindor seduction.”

That made a certain amount of sense. Sirius knew Remus nearly as well as he knew himself, and with that context had judged that a mostly blind gamble with Remus’s unknown romantic preferences was worth enough to him to give it a shot. He was glad, too, that Sirius hadn’t opened with some big-headed explanation of coming onto a friend he suspected was straight because he was, after all, the handsomest boy in school, and if anyone was going to turn another boy’s head, well. Of course it would be Sirius, wouldn’t it? It was a line of logic Remus would have had to reluctantly let stand for truthfulness despite the arrogance of it. But Sirius didn’t say anything like that. The way he told it, he just didn’t want to never know. Of course, risk-taking and sticking their noses into things just because they were curious, because they wanted to _know_ , was a cornerstone of the friendship of the four Gryffindor boys, and so Remus had to allow that this was certainly starting to sound like an experiment worth investigating—just to try it, just to know.

“So, is this a seduction, then?” asked Remus. If he could have seen himself in a pensieve memory of that moment, Remus would have been appalled at the blatant flirtatiousness that snuck into his joking voice, the naked intention in a slow once-over under lowered lashes.

Sirius heard the friendly tone but remained too resigned and oblivious to realize Remus had been warming up to the idea for several minutes now. He fell back into their usual style of banter, but with rather a more lovesick undertone:

“It’s a rather sorry one, Mr. Moony, I must say I’ve got no defense.”

“Not quite your usual style, Mr. Padfoot.” He replied, somewhat more sincerely, his eyes searching. “What makes this different? Just… because we’re blokes?”

“No,” Sirius sighed wretchedly, waving a hand in dismissal. “You don’t like me for my style anyway, that doesn’t matter.”

Remus privately thought that style, especially Sirius’s, might count for something, but it was safer to let him think he was unmoved by it and he said nothing. Sirius continued, rambling,

“Well. In for a knut, … Moony, I’m telling you all this because—And it’s a piss poor seduction because—I don’t just think you’re fit and sexy and rugged looking, and you’re brilliant and you care and… it’s none of that, those are just reasons I would have to be your friend,” he listed off, as if it weren’t the maddest thing he’d said so far.

“Right,” said Remus, thrown off yet again by the abrupt second round of flirtation, this time including traditional compliments— “because all my friends approach me because I’m so… _rugged looking_.”

“And handsome.”

“Right. ‘Course,” said Remus, somewhat choked. He was physically incapable of lowering his eyebrows into a neutral expression.

“So if it were just that, we’d be friends and maybe I’d manage not to make such a prat of myself seducing you, but there’s more—"

Remus didn’t think he could handle much more.

“During the moons—I only realized because I don’t think Prongs and Wormy feel the same, you see. They don’t feel—When I look at you Moony, I know I would do anything—I want to protect you. I want to be there…”

“So what you’re saying is you figured that you—fancy me, because you realized there’s no one else who sees an enormous slavering Dark beast and has the thought, well, there’s a creature that could use some coddling.” He snorted, forcing a bit of a laugh. “No guessing why you’re Hagrid’s favorite, is there?”

Sirius shrugged, all traces of his own defensive humor and self-deprecation gone. He badly wanted Remus to understand. “I just think someone ought to have been there for you. And now I want it to be me.”

Remus was forced to look away. His friend’s earnestness demanded repayment in kind, and he would give it, but it didn’t mean it wasn’t difficult. He recalled James from that morning, fleeing from a conversation about Padfoot’s recent weird behavior and felt distantly jealous. He was starting to really see the appeal of the animagus transformation as an evasion technique.

“You are there for me, Pads, you have been, it’s been like a dream since you all found your animagus forms. I never could have thought it would be like this—You’ve done so much for me already.”

Sirius shook his head, then thought better of it and nodded. “Yes, that’s just it. I want to—I want to give you that again, more. I want to—" a deep flush, which had died down after reaching an unrelenting plateau of embarrassment, started rising in his ears again, “I want to give that to you, forever. No matter how much I’ve bollocksed things up already just in the past ten minutes, Moony—Remus, I’ll never falter from this—Every moon, no matter what happens, I’ll be at your side. I solemnly swear it. I just feel that I—was meant for this. There’s nothing in the world I care about more than—” _loving you_ “—um, protecting you.”

“But why is it different? Like I've said, we all risk Azkaban for each other on a regular basis, there's no sense in questioning why anymore, it's just what we do. And it’s not like James and Pete don’t also…,” Remus replied uncertainly.

“They—they’re mates, yeah. Surely the Marauders will stick together after NEWTs, after we’re of age and all. If nothing else then for moons, I imagine we’ll snap back together like iron to a lodestone. I don’t think that could change much and it’s been true for years and years…”

Remus nodded cautiously; this was something they all reassured each other would surely be true. It was the inevitable outcome of their schoolboy pact, reinforced again as near-adults as they became aware of the dangers within the wizarding world, the dubious organization of which was toppling into war. Remus himself, being the most self-defeating, frequently needed the most reassurance that they would always stick together. So the unspoken ‘but’ in Sirius’s description of their future—of the doubtfulness of James and Peter staying within their circle as Marauders--was unnerving, when Sirius was normally the most insistent about the sacredness and endurance of their bonds.

“But,” said Sirius, “Peter— _he’s skived off on moons before_ , and oh sure yeah, maybe he’s not as useful anyway, doesn’t have the same effect on physically squaring up to the wolf, but look at James, he could’ve excused himself from the very start for being literally a wolf’s idea of prey, but he manages just fine. And I, it wouldn’t matter if I was a, a worm, or a fish, I’d never leave you to transform by yourself if I could help it. And yeah sure James hasn’t ever missed a moon, but that’s because he makes sure he doesn’t get detention. What I mean to say is, I don’t know what he’d choose if it did come up, or if he’d realize that he _could_ choose… The difference is, Moony, I—Filch could literally chain me in the dungeons by my thumbs and still wouldn’t be able to hold me back from going to you. Nobody, not Dumbledore, not my bloody family—This is what I mean, Moony. Forever. If I’m alive, nothing will keep me from you.”

Remus was touched, even if the fervent passion with which Sirius had declared his loyalty was perhaps the most blatant outburst of the Black madness he’d ever seen in the other boy. Although… that too served to make him think, if there was one reason he thought a real relationship between them might work out, it was in the way Sirius’s madness complemented his own deficiencies, in particular a persistent insecurity of being too dangerous, too Dark for any average person to love.

“So I’m being very sincere Moony, and making a right fool of myself.” He laughed, sounding a little hollow. “I don’t know how our Prongsy managed it. He’s got persistence... I might’ve left this conversation and obliviated myself in a broom closet five times over by now from the torturous humiliation of it all if it wasn’t for knowing this is far from the worst flirting attempt these halls have ever seen. But, well… There you go. I care too much about this, about you, to act like normal about it, as if it were just about going to Hogsmeade on a lark. It was always going to end up being more than that. Being—too much.”

Remus digested this in silence for a moment, before he decided his response might do well with a bit of his own oversharing.

“Pads… Do you remember, in second year, when you asked me if I could smell emotions?”

“Er, yeah, you said you couldn’t tell the difference mostly. As Padfoot—it’s primitive, I think I can hardly understand three separate emotions in the dogskin, probably,” replied Sirius, unsure of what this might have to do with his confession. Remus chuckled, never one to miss an opportunity for a good ribbing.

“Oh well done, Padfoot! Three is generous, I hadn’t known we were up to comprehending three whole emotions in human skin,” teased Remus, glad for the moment of levity considering the heaviness of the topic he was steering towards.

“Shut it, Moony, what are you getting at?”

“Right, well, the point is—do you remember when we talked once, about—” _Don’t call them his family_ , he thought, choosing his words, trying to tread as lightly as he could, “um, the Blacks. The madness. And you reckoned—"

Sirius’s face sobered dangerously in response, his tolerance for this line of inquiry being very low. He finished Remus’s sentence:

“We’ve all got a piece missing.”

“Right. Your cousin—Bellatrix, no empathy? Erm, Regulus, no—

“No spine.” He stated coldly, not meaning it literally. Displeasure rang in every syllable at the change in subject. “What’s the point, Moony.” Bringing up the Blacks right after a particularly vulnerable tirade of a love confession was not the most emotionally perceptive decision Remus had ever made. He should’ve just started out with Sirius’s own missing piece.

“Yours, Sirius. You’ve got a missing piece like the rest of them, and I—"

The hinges on Sirius’s carefully peeled back layers of emotional repression pivoted sharply shut at that phrasing, and all the nervousness and shame and energy he’d been holding in were transmuted promptly into offense.

“I’ve _what_? You know, you could just reject me like a normal fucking—I can’t listen to this shit. And from, from you, Moony? How could— _Why_ —” He choked on rage.

“Oh, fucking hell. Merlin, Sirius no, please hang on, no, I’ve said this all wrong—I’m not rejecting you, you daft—” _He really ought to stop insulting him,_ thought Remus. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry, that came out terrible. Just wait, Padfoot, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to compare you to them, to any of them like that, it’s only…”

“It’s only that we’re related and cursed to be mad as hatters, including me,” said Sirius bitterly. He still looked on the verge of tearing away, but Remus had grabbed him by the wrist and—well, fuck, he’d gone ahead and blurted out that he’d not-rejected him, without a single thought for the words flying out of his mouth.

“It’s the emotions, that’s why I mentioned—that’s the point, you see,”

“I lack _emotion_?” said Sirius, his voice raised in incredulity. He wasn’t pulling away now, but stood waiting for an explanation, simply upset and confused.

“No, Pads, you only… lack fear.”

Sirius frowned, as if to consider the concept of fear. He was quite certain he understood it, after all. He shook his head, not getting it.

“Fear means… consequences.” He said slowly, trying to work out the truth of it. “Fear is… something bad is going to happen, or might happen, and so it makes you… feel… I, I know what fear is. I know to—fear consequence. Growing up in that bloody house, don’t you think they taught me the concept of fear?” He was still clearly rattled by the mention of his family.

“You’ve never once turned away from something because you foresaw the consequences though, have you?” said Remus, careful now, gently as he could. “Fear is… say you’re a seeker, diving from a hundred meters up and the snitch is on the grass. Fear makes people pull up, or slow down. They see the injury coming, and they fear it. Any normal person can hardly control their reaction, they’ll pull up far before they hit the ground, before where they might consciously have wanted to. But you, Sirius. You’ll see the broken bones at the end of the dive and come at the ground with your eyes wide open, and all that matters is either it’s worth it or it’s not. You know pain, I think you must avoid it when you can. But I don’t think—No, I know for certain. I have never, ever smelled fear on you.”

“Is this the part with you trying to scare me off then? Because telling me in detail how I’m apparently incapable of it isn’t strengthening the case I ought to run off screaming,” said Sirius, not particularly happy about Remus’s revelation, but no longer moments away from leaving, either. “Although I suppose, if you’re determined to be rid of me you might still manage it, if you want to tell me anything more about how I’m just like—that putrid _bitch_ Bella or—or—” He couldn’t quite get his brother’s name out.

“No, no, no.” chanted Remus quickly, nervously, “Merlin. This is all—look at least you can feel better about your wooing technique as the way it’s going on my end is clearly far more dismal.”

“ _This_ is _your_ idea of wooing me?” cried out Sirius, with a distinct crack in his voice. _He mustn’t say it_ , he thought to himself, _mustn’t admit to second thoughts, not even as a joke. Especially not now that it had worked, and Remus had for once put his foot in his mouth worse than Sirius had. It could be okay if they could just work it all out…_ “No offense, mate, but this has been a Troll-grade effort so far. Ask James for tips, maybe you’ll bring it up to a Dreadful by the end of NEWTs season. But I suppose you aren’t done yet, are you?”

Remus’s hand flexed and tightened on his wrist. His thumb, just for a moment, stroked over the tender skin of Sirius’s pulse point. He grinned self-deprecatingly, glad for the signal that this could still be salvaged.

“No, not done yet. I’m sorry, Pads, I needed to explain about fear because—I understand what you’re getting at with James and Pete. They—when it’s the moon, and sometimes, just. Not lately, more like when we were all kids and you all had just figured it out, I reckon. Back then I could smell the fear on them. They know what I am, and they—"

Sirius muttered something darkly under his breath, sounding unkind.

“They had an _appropriate_ and _sane_ reaction, Sirius. But you… you mad, brilliant—” Remus leaned closer and let go of Sirius’s wrist to draw him in, but then thought twice about just simply hugging him, a bubble of shyness expanding in his chest at the thought of holding their bodies close. He manhandled them both into a shallow niche behind a suit of armor, and in the process fumbled Sirius into a pose accidentally far more sensual. His hands stroked with a touch barely-there down the length of Sirius’s back, sending shivers across his whole body.

“You’ve never been afraid of me, have you? You can’t,” said Remus. “If I think too much, maybe that makes it worse, more dangerous. But it still makes me feel… It helps.”

“Even if the being glad you’ve got someone you can’t scare off part is good not because you’re NOT the monster and just because I’m a nutter,” griped Sirius, skeptically, pleased by their sudden physicality but not wanting his well-deserved petulance to go uncoddled. He allowed himself the brief contrariness, now that he felt more sure in the knowledge they were moving towards the same goal—that Remus wasn’t going to walk away from him when he could feel the heat of him where their bodies brushed together through their clothes, and his hands were clasped around him in a loose hug.

He brought a hand up to card through Remus’s hair, turning his face subtly into a position for kissing. Remus sighed at the soft petting of Sirius’s hand in his hair.

“Yes. Even then,” he said with his mouth. But the words stopped being important, and rest of him was saying, _Yes. The way you are is good for the way I am. Do something about it._


End file.
